OMG https://tidal.com/browse/track/143382402

TLDR; Cons: The tuning is so damn weird, they're the antithesis of neutral audio engineering gear. Picky with the kind of music played through them. Pros: Dynamics when you feed them power, that planar magnetic resolution. If there was one sentence I would use to describe the MM-100 it's that...

When he started using the Amanero asynchronous USB interface it remedied that quite a bit. Now with some due diligence on USB cable spec and source computer, there's nothing lacking in the USB input. But yeah, I agree, it takes a genius to design and build a proprietary discrete R2R DAC...

Glad to see people still talking about and loving the E5000! I picked mine up 4 years ago in Tokyo from e-earphones, after spending almost the whole day auditioning something like 30 different IEMs - including the Final E1000-E4000 range. It was the clear winner for me, against the backdrop of...

Alternative path for those cannot download from OneDrive: Stereophile has uploaded the R7HE Mk2 review - https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-66-audio-gd-r7he-mk2-da-processor I'm really glad that Audio-gd is getting some high profile recognition. It's been long enough, and...

That's right. And for the same amount of money, we get to go much further up the range with a headphone setup than we can with a stereo system. Unfortunately for me, I grew up with my dad's hifi, so I was always going to dabble with speakers. I do love getting fooled into thinking that the...

I'm pretty stoked the LCD3s are still getting some loving! Don't mind me, I'm just briefly getting back in touch with my cans. Was verifying with my 2016 LCD3Fs that what I was hearing with my speakers was correct. Which is that the Matrix Audio Element H PCIE USB card really does result in a...

Thanks! It's a massive step up from the DAC-19. And I have to say, a big step up from the RME ADI-2 as well. It has easily exceeded my expectations. I've heard the Master PCM1704UK DACs and the first King Wa designed chip DACs but that did not prepare me for this. Instruments are so live...

After my long-serving DAC-19 died at the end of a drawn out degradation in SQ, I got a Denafrips Ares II. I really have no clue why there's so much praise for it because it was utterly inferior to the DAC-19 in every way but worst of all in clarity. It did work decently with my less resolving...

Ah, I do prefer my iHA-6 but in my case I have it connected via XLR and also balanced to my LCD3. There seems to be more control and refinement in this setup vs ADI-2 on its own, which in my case is comparing balanced to single ended. I've never really loved the single ended output from the...

So unluckily for me, my DAC-19 is in its death throes - 4 years & 1 month old. Where it used to sound great all the time, it has been a crapshoot and more often than not it sounds medicore and lacks clarity and transparency. I theorise that there might be some degraded capacitors in there...

So I've had my DAC-19 for 3 years now and it has served me very well. I love the realistic timbre and tone and expressiveness. On the other hand, it was perfect for the first 2 years until it started behaving erratically. At times, there's a significantly noticeable channel imbalance. At other...

What are you using that can't drive the E5000? I've used it with my iPhone dongle and can go past live concert levels, even with the good recordings mastered without loudness inserted. Volume at 80%, sure, but no clipping or distortion at all.

The path I took to get my E5000 two weeks ago was via a chance audition of the E3000 in e.earphones Shibuya. It was one of my last days in Tokyo and I was desperate to bring home some sort of souvenir for myself, having previously visited the larger, more extensive e.earphones store in...

This is why I haven't felt the need to swap my DAC-19 out for anything else. The natural sound, the realistic timbre and balance. It's that analog PCM1704UK presentation that with the right song & time of day, and with speakers, makes me believe that the singer is standing right there in the...

Eric Whitacre, Eric Whitacre Singers: Whitacre: Lux Aurumque https://tidal.com/track/4580150 Turn the volume up for this

In fairness to reviewers, Audeze does shoulder some of the blame for this. Reputable high-end manufacturers generally don't have a need to come in and revise their products while they're in production and change things mid-stream, ending up with different versions of the same product that might...

The Audeze LCD2C product page and Steve Guttenberg's cnet post say it's made in Audeze's California facility. On the other hand, someone commented on Tyll's innerfidelity post that Audeze headphones are made in China and shipped from the Shanghai port. Some posts on head-fi.org have people...

There’s a sufficient amount of bass when needed but the LCD 3 has quite a balanced bass. If you want a bit more of an emphasis in bass then the LCD2 classic is the way to go. If the classic LCD3s were accused of darkness, then the current fazors bring a more neutral treble. Not so much as to...

They're excellent together - and I've heard most of the headphone amp lineup. Audio-gd has that smooth, organic house sound that manages to maintain fine details without any fatigue and provides power with finesse. For my tastes, they're best with their R2R DACs so I would prefer to go with one...

It will work for sure but there will definitely be some improvements to be had with a beefier amp paired to the LCD3. I think quite a few cases of people not rating LCDs is purely due to insufficient amp output power. The lack of power to drive LCDs can be the difference between a ‘flat’ sound...

I've only heard the Sony MDR-Z1R with that amp, and it was pretty impressive. The specs say in balanced mode it can do 1200 MW at 32 Ohms, but I'm not sure how much it will output at the 110 ohms impedance of the LCD3s. I don't think Sony had any of the LCDs in mind when designing it though, so...

I disagree. The Pan Am doesn't output the kind of power needed for magneplanars - it didn't drive my LCD2 (never tried it with my LCD3) well enough, sweet but lacking punch and dynamics. And the built-in DAC is only so so to the point that I always use an external DAC. The LCD2 sensitivity is...

The higher rated power output is for XLR out in any case. Single ended gets you the lower power output. It’s in the specs IIRC.

What it means is that the asynchronous Amanero USB interface is doing its job - it is successfully mitigating jitter. And it also shows that you have a USB port and cable combo that is operating according to spec, with little to no RF interference. USB port and cable manufacturers are not all...